


Bum Rap

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, M/M, he's in the jailhouse now, homicidal robots, jeez you build a few rampaging monsters and they treat you like such a jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3788989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time, Stan Pines has the unsettling realization that he is not the hardest guy in the cell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bum Rap

Constable Blubs is the one to take him in.

He’s trying to be philosophical about it--what, like this is his first time in the chokey, right?--but when he thinks on how many times as he’s pulled up some wall beside an off-duty Blubs to have a smoke break outside the Skull Fracture, the betrayal sinks in like a knife.  You think you can trust a guy.

“Come on, this is a conspiracy!” Stan protests.  He shrugs his shoulders, pulling against his cuffs.  “I’ve been framed!  Ask anybody, I was at home with a head-cold!”

“Don’t give me that, Pines,” Blubs grumbles, pushing him along.  “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t even be here.  You got any idea how much paperwork this is for me?”

“Then cut me loose and we’ll save us both the trouble!”

“The sheriff would have my badge. And I am not about to update my resume.  Talk about paperwork.  No dice, Pines.  It’s your own fault, anyway.  You just couldn’t wait till dark, could ya?”

Stan humphs to himself.  Yeah, all right.  So he isn’t subtle.  Served the goddamn reefer-huffin’ free-lovin’ ballot-burnin’ s.o.b. right.

“Here we are,” Blubs says, stopping in front of a holding cell.  “After you, Pines.”

“What?” says a small, gawky voice from inside the dim lock-up.  “No!  This one’s occupied!”

“You zip it, loony!” Blubs snaps.  “This here’s your roommate for the night.”

Stan peers at his ‘roommate.’  Sitting on one of the concrete slabs stuck into the wall is a scrawny little pencil-neck with a pair of coke bottle glasses and his hair flopped over on his forehead.  He’s got his legs pulled up onto the bench with him, knees up to his chest, and he’s got his arms wrapped around his shins.

Jeez.  Like the glasses weren’t enough.  He’s even got leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket.

He bears an uncanny resemblance to a ton of guys Stan remembers from high school.  After he got over his own gawk phase and started pumping iron, Stan used to shove guys like this into lockers.  This is the sort of guy, scrawny and bookish and kinda delicate, that made Stan’s hands clench with the urge to touch--punch.  Punch.

“But--”  

“I said can it!”

The little man gives them a look of abject misery and sighs.

Stan blows out his lips.  “Psh.  Yeah, great.  Real den of felonious behavior you got here, pal.  Real hardened criminals up in here, Blubs.”

Blubs snorts and shoves him through the bars, slamming the door behind him.  “Gimme your hands, Pines.”

The officer uncuffs him and Stan rubs at his wrists, leaning against the bars.  “So when do I get my phone call?”

Blubs opens his mouth to speak but the walkie-talkie at his hip buzzes. _“Attention all units--we got a 23-16 in progress in the breakroom!  Repeat, a 23-16!”_

“I gotta move!” Blubs cries, and starts hurrying down the hall.

“If this is that stupid cantaloupe thing again,” Stan shouts after him, “my lawyer’s gonna have your ass in a satchel!”

Man, Ford’s gonna kill him.

He grabs one of the bars and gives it a desultory shake, because hey, you never know what kind of corners the criminal justice system of Foggy Buttfuck, Oregon, Population: 6, might cut, but the bars are solid through and he gives up rather than try and waste his time shaking them down.  Stan trudges over to side of the cell opposite the ‘occupied’ concrete bench and flings himself into his seat, giving his cellmate a once-over.  

Actual wing-tip Oxford shoes.  Holy friggin’ crap.  This guy probably polishes them at night, too.

The guy shivers.  Stan guesses it’s a little cold, or it must be when you’ve got all the body mass of a ballpoint pen.  Not a strip of fat on him, Stan would be willing to bet, and probably no muscle, neither.

“All right, poindexter,” he says.  “What’re you in for?”

The nerdy little guy wraps himself up tighter.  “Why do you care?”

“Frankly it’s either this or we beat the shit out of each other for fun.”  Stan grins at him.  The nerd goes pale and tightens up.  “So I figure we better make conversation some way or the other, to keep ourselves entertained.  We’ll be lucky if any of those guys come back tonight.”

The guy looks over at the barred wall with a doleful expression.  “What did you mean by the ‘cantaloupe thing’?”  His accent is warm and Southern and it puts this soft little burr on a few vowels, a very slight drawl on the L’s.  He’s been training himself out of it, Stan can tell.

Stan grimaces.  “You’re probably happier not knowing.  The 23-16’s a hell of a bar-trick but it’s not something you want to try and imagine.”

The nerd goes pale and then a little green and Stan has a hard time fighting a grin off his face.  It’s all Con-Psych 101.  Let your patsy imagine the worst for himself.  Stan’s not pulling anything now, but might as well keep leather-patches off his balance.

The guy shuffles his feet a little and they sit quietly for a few long moments.

“Seriously,” Stan says at last.  “What’d you do?  Throw a calculator at somebody?  Walk away instead of scoopin’ Fido’s poop?”

The man’s mouth twists in a scowl and he hugs himself even tighter.  “No,” he says, a little defensively.  After a moment, he heaves a sigh.  “It’s kinda...personal.”

Stan laughs.  “No way.  Solicitation?  Here?  Can’t say I’m surprised, by the looks of ya, but I didn’t even know they had hookers in this one-horse town!”

The guy stares at him, aghast.  “No!” he says, flushing bright red.  “I have no idea if there are any--and any way, I wouldn’t hire them!”

“Right.  I bet you’re swimmin’ in women, good-lookin’ guy like you.”

The man frowns and holds up his left hand.  A gold ring gleams on his fourth finger.  

“I’m married, jackass!” he replies.  After a second, he looks at his own hand and his face turns deeply sad as he starts twiddling with the band.  “Or.  I was, anyway.”

“Ah, chick problems,” Stan hums sagely.  He laces his fingers behind his head and spreads his legs apart.  The little guy across from him shifts awkwardly, looking at his arms and legs for a second, no doubt thinking about how easily Stan could smoosh him.  “I bet I got you beat there, ‘dex.”

“Do you really,” the man humphs.

“Yup.  Just drove a hippie’s van into a ravine over a chick,” Stan says, buffing his nails on his chest.  “That’s why I’m here.”

“Impressive,” the nerd remarks, very sarcastically.

“Oh, what, like you’re tough shit?” Stan asks.  “Real big-time criminal, huh?  You beat her to death with a slide-rule or something?”

“ _No_!” the man yells.  Actually yells.  

Sore fuckin’ nerve there, then.  Stan’s eyebrows bob up.

“No!  I’d never--I would never, ever hurt Gina,” he says in a more normal tone.  “Never that.  I just...well, it’s _personal_.”  

“So get personal, nerd, like what the shit do I care what you did?”

The little guy shifts again and sighs.  “You could be a plain-clothes policeman, for all I know.  Here to get a confession out of me.”  

Stan shrugs.  “Fine.”

They sit in solemn silence for a few moments more.  Down the hall and further in the police station, Stan can hear cops chanting “Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!”

He opens his mouth.  “So how ‘bout dem Mets--”

The little guy grabs his own head, knocking his glasses a little bit askew, and cries, “She’s met someone else and fallen in love and I built a homicidal Pterodactyl-tron because I didn’t know what else to do!”

The guy’s skinny legs hang down off the bench and just barely touch the floor.  Damn, how can someone be so tiny?

And then what he says catches up to Stan.

“Uh.  Well.  I ain’t exactly Mr. Happy Monogamy or anything, but have you tried.  Y’know.   _Not_ building a homicidal Pterodactyl-tron?” Stan suggests.

Is this that stuff that Ford was talking about a day or two ago?  Something about a giant flame-belching dragon?

(All of Ford’s weird stuff blurs together after a while.  Shit’s kooky and Stan’s only interest is in keeping his dumbass twin out of prison and/or the morgue.

He just really hopes Ford hurries the fuck up to return the favor.)

Across the cell, the little nerd is still holding his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees.

“It’s not-- _of course_ I know not to build one!” he moans.  “I panicked!  It’s just, I, she…”  He scrubs a hand over his face and looks up at Stan.  “I know she doesn’t love me, and I’m willing to let her go, even though it hurts, because I still want her to be happy, but...she can’t take my son with her!”  

Stan gets serious.  Pencil-neck’s old lady stepping out isn’t anything worth scorching the earth over, but taking the dweeb’s kid away, too?  Fuck.  Stan isn’t even a dad but if anyone tried to take, say, Ford’s kids away from him…

Yeah, no.  Pterodactyl-tron would be the least of it.  Stan would be riding the friggin’ thing into battle.

“Fuck, man,” he says, experiencing a moment of complete sympathy for the little guy.  “She’s not gonna do it, though.  Is she?”

“She was just kind of talking about maybe taking him to live with her and her beau in California,” the guy says quietly.  He’s twiddling with his wedding ring again.  “And I lost it.  Flipped my lid.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I should’ve just...held it together,” he agonized.  “Talked her out of it.  A giant killer robot isn’t going to impress a judge at a custody hearing.”

“Did it actually kill anybody?” Stan asks, kind of afraid of the answer.

The little guy shrugs.  “I don’t think so.  I wouldn’t be here if it had, I reckon.  It doesn’t matter, after all.  She could take Vern if she wanted to, now, whether anybody got hurt or not.  It’s all my fault.”

“How old’s the kid?” Stan asks.  He needs to get off the subject of the wife or this guy’s going to pull himself apart, possibly all over Stan.

The little guy looks up at him.  “Two,” he says.  “Vern’s two.  He just took his first steps a week ago.”

“Got a picture?”  

The guy shakily pulls out a wallet and digs around in it.  He leans over and shows Stan a picture of a happy little family, the guy himself standing beside a knock-out of a woman.  She’s about six five, if he’s got the nerd’s height guessed right, and she has red lips and a short, dark haircut that covers her eyes.  In her arms she holds a little baby with an incongruously large nose, just like the nerd’s, and a little tuft of hair falling over his eyes.  

The nerd in the picture is grinning.  He looks so happy and he’s got a really cute smile.  

Dumb.  He means dumb.  It’s a dopey smile, like he’s just going to burst with pride.  Really dumb.

“He looks more like my cousin than like me,” the nerd says.  He runs his thumb over the picture.  “But he’s my boy.”

Stan grunts.  “Cousin?”

“Gina...well, she--”  He looks at Stan suddenly and shakes his head.  “I shouldn’t even tell you this.  You’re a stranger.”

“Yeah, ‘cause strange has a shit-ton of meaning in this freaky little town.”

The nerd cracks a kind of halfway smile and it’s really, really, really dumb-looking.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.  Just...suffice it to say that Gina and I rescued each other from scandal, and I’m not as torn up about her having a beau as I am about her thinking about moving away.”

Stan nods.  “I get that.  Chicks are chicks pretty much everywhere you go.  Some ya fall ass-first in love with, some ya just bone.  But kids?  Damn.”

The nerd gives him another sad smile and nods.  “I’m, uh.  I’m Fiddleford McGucket.”  He extends a skinny, pale hand.

Stan considers the whole situation for a second but, hell.  The little nerd builds rampaging robots.  Stan doesn’t like to admit it, but that does kind of make him the hardest guy in the cell.

He takes McGucket’s hand and clasps it firmly, suppressing a smile at the nerd's slight wince.  So maybe he could still kick poindexter’s ass. “Stan Pines.”

“So,” Fiddleford says, sitting back on his bench.  He rubs the back of his neck.  “You say you drove a hippie van into a ravine?”

“Yup.”

“I was wondering why you reek patchouli.  It didn’t seem like your kind of cologne, to look at you.”

“Aw, man, did I get some on me?” Stan asks, really alarmed as he tilts his head to sniff himself.  Yup.  Stinking of it.  “Phwoar!  Nasty!”

“It smells like a Grateful Dead concert in here,” Fiddleford nods.  “I think the sink works okay, if you want to try and get the worst off.”

Blubs finally comes back after an hour or two, while Stan’s still sitting shirtless in the cell, his massage oil-soaked tee drying by the barred window.  The cop gives them both a slow look that kind of lingers on Fiddleford, who turns a pretty hilarious shade of puce and very intensely refocuses on the little pocket notebook he’s been scribbling in.

Stan pulls the damp shirt on and goes to call Ford.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says.  “Yeah, down in the lock-up--Ford--Ford, shut up for a second--Ford!  Listen up, I might’ve found a guy to help you with your spooky nerd stuff.  Remember that dragon thing from a few days ago?  Yeah, I just met the inventor and--yeah, an invention, Ford, the thing was a giant robot.  This little dork knows this town’s weird shit like the back of his hand.  Come on down and bring the bail money and--what?  Whaddaya mean?  It’s--damn it, Ford, the bail money’s in the friggin’ cookie jar, like it always is!  Sweet stammerin’ Moses, it’s like you don’t even know me...yeah, bring the cookie jar and probably the bag in my sock drawer.  I think you’re gonna wanna see this guy’s resume, so you’ll be bailin’ for two.”  Stan listens for a second.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, can it, Four Eyes.  You owed me a Coke anyway.  See ya soon.”

Blubs, who has been listening in the whole time, gives him another look.  Stan gives him the finger.  He’s just looking out for his brother’s best interests, okay?  Shove it.

If anybody asks, springing the dweeb is Ford’s idea.


End file.
